The environmental impact of eCommerce
My instinct tells me the environmental impact of eCommerce is more about the logistics such as sourcing, packaging and distribution of the products sold, rather than the actual online selling process. We need to measure the energy and resources used in the supply chain as well as the eCommerce hosting setup.
Factors to consider are:
- How is the product sourced, and what is its supply chain?
- Is it bought locally, or does it need to be imported? The further a vegetable travels to get from field to plate, the higher the cost to the environment in terms of congestion, accidents and pollution.
- How responsible are the employer credentials of the product’s manufacturers and suppliers? Can you be sure your clothes haven’t been stitched by children working in cottage industries across Asia?
- Distribution and logistics – How has the product been shipped to the end customer? If a courier company is used, does it have green credentials to offset its carbon footprint? Is there a single depot with airfreight going out everywhere, or are there multiple depots allowing for local distribution?
- What about the packaging used? We all know that plastic doesn’t biodegrade quickly and remains in the environment for a very long time. This presents a real danger to marine and birdlife. How much plastic wrapping, Styrofoam padding and staples are used? Is it far more than necessary, and does the consumer even want this?
- What guidelines do shippers give to end consumers about recycling the packaging, and is the cardboard used easy to recycle? If the cardboard is coated with wax for instance, it often cannot be recycled.
- How energy efficient is the ecommerce/ hosting set up? Check out RackSpace new Green Hosting product
- How efficient is the software and can processing requirements be reduced?
- Have they reduced their server and processing cooling requirements?
- Do they use a renewable energy supply?
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